Disclaimers: The Highlander universe and Methos, Joe, and Amy are not my creations. They belong to someone else and I am only using them for fun and entertainment. I mean no harm, I make no money. (a mantra of mine)

These are missing scenes from the episode "Indiscretions". Specifically, this takes place during the last commercial break before the tag scene. :-)

The Better Part of Valor
by Teresa C

---------------------------------------------

Joe tried to hurry her, but Amy seemed reluctant to rush - almost lagging. From behind and above them came the sound of the two immortals' voices, then the chilling clangs of sword on sword.

"Joe ...," Amy hesitated.

Joe looked at her, concerned. He'd spent the last few hours in terror that Walker was harming her. The face of his daughter (his daughter!) was drawn and pale. She seemed unhurt, but ...

"... I've never seen a challenge. Couldn't we somehow ..."

"No." Joe continued down, hoping his refusal would be enough to cause her to follow. He knew well the morbid allure of seeing a swordfight to the death.

Amy followed, but cast glances behind her, toward the sound of the fighting.

They reached the ground floor and Joe led her to the car. He felt safe to speak only once they were well clear of the power station. He turned and gripped her arms.

"Amy, are you all right? I've been so worried!"

Amy brought her gaze from the building to look at Joe. "He didn't hurt me. Much, anyway. I'm all right, Joe." She turned her shaken face back toward the power station. "Who is he? Not MacLeod."

"No. A friend. Come on. You'll have to drive." He handed her the keys.

Amy opened the driver's door uncertainly. "Can he take Walker?"

The question filled Joe with dread. He didn't know how to answer. Instead, he levered himself into their stolen vehicle and, once Amy was behind the wheel, directed her to drive to a position where they were hidden from view of the power station entrance, and could quickly exit onto the road.

When they looked back, the quickening had begun. Blue flashes strobed on the second story, where they had left the combatants. The windows exploded outward - a shower of glass shards raining down on the parking lot. The charged atmosphere prickled the skin of the two Watchers.

Joe watched Amy's rapt expression as she witnessed the explosive side effects of the transfer of power between immortals. Many Watchers went their whole careers without witnessing a quickening. Joe had seen many, but he was still awed by the so-tangible evidence of supernatural power belonging to otherwise ordinary seeming people. Not for the first time he wondered what it must be like to carry around in your body the potential for that kind of energy.

He was reassured by the force of the quickening that the source was Walker, not Methos. From everything he had heard and observed, the quickening of the 5000 year old immortal would have been on a scale well beyond even that of Kalas, which had interrupted power to half of Paris. This had to be Walker.

Amy had no such reassurance. Joe wondered what she was thinking.

Apparently her thoughts had turned to practicalities. "We should have disabled Walker's car, so he can't follow us. I mean, if he won,." she said.

"There wasn't time. And, don't worry, Walker didn't win. You can pull up to the door. Let's keep our eyes open for ... my friend." Joe caught himself before naming Methos, even as Adam Pierson. Amy had apparently never met Pierson, but his name might still be familiar as an ex-Watcher.

Amy obediently drove the "borrowed" Land Rover to the main entrance of the power station. She watched the door while Joe kept an uneasy lookout for other associates of Walker's. He calculated the time Methos would need to recover from the effects of the quickening, and to deal with the body and come down the stairs. That time passed.

"It's been too long," he fretted.

"He might have come out some other exit."

"Maybe."

"How can you be sure he won?" Amy sounded nervous.

Joe struggled to come up with an answer. He didn't want to lie to her. "Trust me, okay?"

Amy gave him a wan smile and looked away. She stiffened. "Who is that? Is that him?"

A trenchcoated figure strode across a field, heading away from the station and the highway. Hands in pockets, head bent forward, shoulders hunched, Joe couldn't mistake him. He was surprised by the force of his relief at the sight. Methos, the world's most irritating immortal. The man who had just saved his daughter's life. (his daughter!)

"That's him! Pull out onto the highway and honk!"

The figure paused at the sound and looked back. Joe waved out his window, still unsure what name to call out. Methos waved back and leaned forward into a jog. He arrived, grinning, at the car.

"Hey Joe!"

"Where did you think you were going?" Joe asked.

"I didn't know you had stayed around."

"Did you really think we'd leave you?"

"I can think of a few good reasons to." Methos ducked to peer past Joe. "Hello. Amy isn't it? Would you pop the hatch for me? I want to put the swords in."

Amy nodded, tight-lipped.

Methos rummaged in the back.

"Cover them up, willya?" Joe called, " We don't need to be driving around with a murder weapon visible."

"Okay," Methos climbed in the back seat, "Now what?"

"Have you got any blood on your clothes?" Joe asked.

Joe saw Amy blanche at the question. He sighed inwardly. Not only were the two Watchers not supposed to be working with an immortal, they were certainly not supposed to be sharing a car with one. To most Watchers, immortals had a celebrity sort of status - fascinating but unapproachable. And dangerous. After all, they were all killers, weren't they?

"No Mom, I kept my school clothes clean," Methos said. "I doubt my sword will pass a forensic examination, however."

"Then we'd better get away from here. We need to lose this car, too. Amy, let's get going. West."

"Joe!" Methos protested, "I want to get back to my car!"

"I know, I know," Joe assured him, "Just not right away. Tell me, how much experience do you have avoiding the police?"

It was a real question, not sarcasm, and Methos honored it as such. "Not much, this century," he admitted.

"Then let me do this. No one uses any credit cards, any ATMs, or any cell phones from now on. And, as soon as we get back to Paris, you call the police and report your car stolen. Now, how much cash have we all got?"

"I've got more than I did." Methos sounded pleased. He held out a wallet stuffed with francs.

"Don't tell me you took Walker's wallet!"

"Sure I did. He doesn't need it." Methos reached into the cash, and for a moment Joe feared he would offer to share the spoils. Then he seemed to think better of it and put the wallet away.

"You didn't think that maybe you don't want to be found with a murdered man's wallet?"

"There's nothing in it but cash. If he used credit cards he didn't keep them in here."

"He generally pays with cash," Amy piped up, her voice sounding small. The two men ceased bickering to consider their driver.

"All right," Joe allowed, after an uncomfortable pause, "keep the money but throw the wallet out. It's hard to explain having two wallets."

"I'd like to introduce you to Amy," Joe added, "but I don't know what name to call you."

"You had plenty of names for me earlier," Methos groused, "but I see the difficulty. Umm, Walker knew me as Benjamin Adams. Nice to meet you, Amy."

"Nice to meet you," she replied automatically. She kept her gaze on the road.

Methos shifted in the back seat to where he could see her better. "Are you all right, Amy?" he asked, his tone gentle. "Would you like me to drive?"

"No," was her curt answer. Joe watched her, worried, as she took a deep breath and choked out, "Are you all right?"

Well. Joe considered it a good sign that she was able to extend the immortal in her car some courtesy. Methos was the one who had just fought a duel to the death, after all. Perhaps she might come to see immortals, not as game pieces, but as people, as Joe always had. He hoped she might manage to thank Methos eventually. He ought to do that himself, he reflected. Ouch.

"Sure," Methos answered her. He shifted on the seat again, trying to catch Joe's eye. Joe looked away, uneasy with his own thoughts. He had asked the man to risk his life after he had thrown him off his database. And as for agreeing to set Methos up for Walker! Joe winced away from that guilt, vowing to deal with it later. Maybe much later.

"'Benjamin', huh," he said, taking refuge in irrelevancy.

"Benjamin," Methos said, pointedly.

"Not Ben?"

"Do I look like a Ben?"

"I don't know what you look like!" Exasperating man. "And I never called you any names."

"Yes, you did. You called me a head hunter and you called me untrustworthy."

"Well, you were breaking into my Chronicles! Besides, you called me a hypocrite and an oath-breaker!"

"I was only trying to spare you any moral dilemmas you might face if I had asked you for information on Walker!"

"Oh, you were trying to spare me, not use me!"

"It was your Chronicles I was trying to use, Joe, not you. My life was at stake, if you hadn't noticed. I'd do it again. You really should get a tougher password."

"It's your job to stay out of things you aren't supposed to be in, not my job to keep you out with uncrackable passwords!"

Too late, Joe realized they had just betrayed to Amy that "Benjamin" knew about Watcher Chronicles. Joe glanced at her white- knuckled grip on the steering wheel and sighed.

Methos was still in the fray. "But see what I got when I did ask you for help with Walker?"

"Because I had just found you breaking in! You didn't try asking me first!"

"Not only did you refuse, you accused me of hunting him! What have I done to deserve that?"

"You mean recently?"

Joe regretted it the moment he said it. Regretted it passionately.

Methos threw himself back against the seat and looked out the window, arms folded across his chest.

Joe regarded the road through blurred vision. Hell of a way to get the last word.

They drove in silence. West. Amy looked at her biological father curiously, but when she finally spoke, it wasn't to him. "Uh, Benjamin?"

"Hmm?" Methos continued looking out the window.

"Can I ask you some things?"

Methos sighed and shifted in the seat again. "You can give Walker an 'Unknown Termination'. Or else put 'Benjamin Adams' in your close-out report. I'm not in the Chronicles, and I don't care if you want to start an entry for Benjamin Adams."

Amy seemed nonplused at "Benjamin's" knowledge of Watcher procedures. "Because you're not really going by Benjamin Adams."

"Not any more."

"I don't suppose you'd tell me what you are going by."

"Nope. Maybe your dad will if he decides to make things unpleasant for me."

Joe winced. Amy flushed and gave Joe a furious look.

Silence ruled the car again.